Cryptocurrencies are continuing to fall after China's shock ICO ban

LONDON — Major cryptocurrencies remained under pressure Tuesday morning as the market continued to digest Monday's news that several financial regulators were cracking down on a fundraising method that uses them.

The initial fall of both bitcoin and ethereum on Monday was triggered by a crackdown on so-called initial coin offerings in Asia. ICOs are where startups raise money by issuing new digital currencies or tokens that can be traded online.

Those falls continued into Tuesday, with both ethereum and bitcoin losing about 2.5% more overnight. Ethereum had lost as much as 20% during trade on Monday, having been worst hit by the ICO crackdown.

The Ethereum blockchain is the most popular platform to use when hosting an ICO — it allows people to write "smart contracts" that will release new tokens to investors when a certain amount of ether, the digital currency that powers Ethereum, is received.

Here's how the currency looks just before 8 a.m. BST (3 a.m. ET):

Markets Insider

And here is how bitcoin looks at the same time:

Markets Insider

Further falls could be on their way, with a China-focused executive from the trading platform eToro describing the ICO crackdown as a "huge deal."